


everything will be alright... in the end

by MadelaineHeartEyes



Series: love can tell a million stories [3]
Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-29 10:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19018336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadelaineHeartEyes/pseuds/MadelaineHeartEyes
Summary: Trina is unable to cope after Marvin's death. Mendel doesn't realise to what extent.





	everything will be alright... in the end

Mendel didn’t think he would ever get that image out of his brain. Every time he blinked, it was all he could see, burned onto his eyelids, and his hands shook uncontrollably as he sat by the bed, monitors bleeping, watching the shallow rise and fall of his wife’s chest, wrists bandaged tightly. Blossoms of red still managed to seep through the white, like poppies in the plant pots by the front door, and he had to look away, tears burning for the umpteenth time that night. She looked so frail, too frail lying there, so still. She had lost weight over the last month, and all of her bones stood out, casting shadows against the pallor of her skin. Her collarbones left hollows on her chest, her cheeks were almost concave, and a small child could encircle her wrist. It made him feel sick.

He took her hand as gently as he could, wishing he could just take the pain away. He knew he couldn't, and that's what hurt the most.

***

The last month had been heartbreakingly difficult. Over the past few years, Marvin had grown weaker and weaker. In the end, he gave up - Mendel couldn't blame him for that. They had tried to be there for him, support him as everything fell apart, but they just weren't enough.

Trina had been numb for days, until she _broke_ one night while making dinner. Mendel had barely made it to her in time before she crumpled, lowering her to the ground slowly and holding her as she cried and shook in his arms.

Her nights were restless - she would wake up two or three times shuddering violently, shaking her head when he tried to ask how he could help, just pulling him closer. She whimpered and shivered in her sleep, and he spent most of his time stroking her hair and hushing her quietly.

She had always been nervous, always ‘on the verge’, but he had barely left her alone in the weeks following Marvin’s death, not quite trusting what she would do. There were moments when she had stared so blankly into the distance, it had taken minutes of gentle coaxing to bring her back. It took even more to get her to eat, and most of it ended up back in the toilet of their en suite shortly afterwards. All he could do was hold her hair back, dry her tears, and wait for things to get better.

It was his first day back at work when it happened.

***

He had known something was wrong as soon as he opened the front door. In the last few days, Trina had begun to return to her usual state - a tornado of nervous energy, cleaning, cooking, still in the hunt for perfection that Marvin had set her on years before and she couldn’t quite erase from her psyche, as though his spectre still paced the floorboards demanding, never satisfied. Mendel thought she was getting better, getting over everything that had happened. But that afternoon, it was silent. Totally silent, and there wasn’t even a note on the table, informing him she’d gone round the block to get a pint of milk or whatever, with a kiss at the bottom in her sloping cursive that made his heart warm. Jason hadn’t come home yet, and Mendel felt slightly frantic, like an omen was trying to tell him something.

“Trina?”

He called, voice shaky as he walked up the stairs. Then he heard it - a weak moan from the bathroom. He raced to the door, hands shaking, cursing when he found it locked.

“Trina!”

More noise, but not the click of the lock, and in a split second he decided to just break the door down - it was dodgy anyway. It burst open against his shoulder, and he stumbled at the sight before him.

Trina was sitting on the floor, back leaning heavily against the bathtub, head drooping to one side. But it was the deep, deep cuts on her wrists - dripping blood, too much blood, on the tiles and the purple floral of her dress - that made him want to be sick. There was a discarded razor next to her hand in a pool of blood, and suddenly everything clicked into place.

In a daze, he raced to the phone, shouting at the poor operator for an ambulance far too loudly, then careening back to the bathroom. He clamped his hands over Trina’s wrists, desperately trying to stop the flow of blood. She was whimpering, and her eyelids were drooping. 

“No no no no no - Trina, stay with me. Hey - hey, look at me.” 

Her eyes met his, unfocused. They filled with tears, and he rested his forehead against hers, silently willing her to stay, hold on, not to leave him. Her lips moved almost soundlessly, and he had to tilt his ear towards them to hear the whispering.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologise. Just keep looking at me, stay with me.”

It felt like it took the ambulance an age to arrive. But he kept his eyes locked on hers, begging her to stay. _Stay_.

***

He had called Cordelia and Charlotte to get Jason, his voice shaky and tearful. He knew Trina would freak if she knew he had seen her like this, and they had promised to bring him whenever she woke up, and he had thanked them too many times before putting the phone down with a sigh. Cordelia's voice had been shaky - she was grieving herself, badly, if what Charlotte had told him was anything to go by, and he felt almost guilty for burdening the pair. 

***

Mendel fell asleep a few hours later, unwillingly, in the chair by the bed. He wakes to the sound of Trina’s sobs, and opens his eyes to see her hand clamped over her mouth, tears pooling in her hair.

“Hey - hey. You scared me so much.”

She jumps at his voice, and more tears leak from her eyes. Her words are choked, and her bottom lip shakes as she speaks.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so, _so_ sorry. I’m so selfish - what about Jason? What about _you_? _I'm so sorry_.”

He lifts a hand to wipe her tears, and stroke her hair in the way that he knows comforts her. She flinches slightly at his touch, can’t look him in the eyes.

“It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. I love you.”

This starts her tears again, and she finally turns her head towards him as he takes her hand and lays a gentle kiss against the back of it.

“I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

The admittance seems to sting her the moment it comes through her lips, and she closes her eyes against it. He recommences stroking her hair, fingers smoothing out the tight curls that he loves.

“Hey - we will get through this. I’m here. I'm not going to leave you." 

This draws a sad smile to her lips. Tiny, but it's there, even as more tears track their way down her cheeks. He presses a kiss on her temple, whispering against her hair.

“Everything will be alright.”

As he looks into her eyes, he watches as he sees something in them that hasn't shown itself in years.

 _Hope_.

**Author's Note:**

> I realise that this is super angsty, but I wanted it to have a hopeful ending as these characters genuinely deserve the world.
> 
> The changes between past and present tense weren't quite as successful as I had hoped, but I hope that it still reads acceptably and that my point gets across.
> 
> I read somewhere that William Finn said that Trina attempted suicide (possibly succeeded) at some point after the events of Falsettoland, and I wanted to write a fic that helped flesh that out a bit more. She is absolutely my favourite character in the show - I find her endlessly intriguing, more so as I watch different actresses' interpretations of her. They vary so much - my writing/image of the characters tends to be based on Barbara Walsh, simply because she was the first Trina that I watched the whole show with, but my characterisation I think is slightly more emotional than her interpretation, and there are definitely elements of Stephanie J Block and Allison Fraser. Basically, I would give my life for any actress that has played Trina, and all of them are equally valid, and my writing is a hybrid of many different versions.
> 
> Many of the lyrics in the show are very very dark, and of course the themes are equally dark, and while I love fluff as much as the next person I think it is important to acknowledge the less romantic side of things - the AIDS crisis was horrific for the gay community, and those in New York were possibly the most affected. I haven't done enough research to be able to write a fic directly about that, so I decided I would start here - with those that were left behind.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed x


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